Aristide Wants to Go Back, Should be Allowed to Return to
Haiti

1. Former Haiti President Aristide: I Want To Go Back, Too
   (Miami Herald)
2. Aristide Should Be Allowed to Return to Haiti (Mark
   Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research

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Former Haiti President Aristide: I Want To Go Back, Too

By Trenton Daniel
Miami Herald
January 20m 2011

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/19/2024063/former-haiti-president-aristide.html

In what may be his first public statement since one- time
nemesis Jean-Claude Duvalier showed up in Haiti, former
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said he is "ready"
to return to his troubled homeland.

Aristide, a two-time head-of-state, wrote a letter from
South Africa, according to his former foreign press liaison,
Michelle Karshan. Copies were e-mailed to a list of
undisclosed recipients and it is now circulating on the
Internet...

If Aristide were to return, it would be come at a
politically fragile time in Haiti, compounded only by
Duvalier's presence in the country. One year after a 7.0
magnitude earthquake, Haiti is wrestling with sluggish
reconstruction, an electoral crisis, and a deadly cholera
outbreak.

"The purpose is very clear," according to Aristide's letter.
"To contribute to serving my Haitian sisters and brothers as
a simple citizen in the field of education," Aristide wrote
in the letter dated Jan. 19. "The return is indispensable,
too, for medical reasons: It is strongly recommended that I
not spend the coming winter in South Africa's because in 6
years I have undergone 6 eye surgeries."

Full story at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/19/2024063/former-haiti-president-aristide.html

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Aristide Should Be Allowed to Return to Haiti

by Mark Weisbrot

Bellingham Herald (WA), January 20, 2011
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, January 20, 2011 

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/aristide-should-be-allowed-to-return

[This op-ed was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information
Services on January 19, 2011 and published by the Bellingham
Herald (WA) and other newspapers]

Haiti's infamous dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier, returned to
his country this week, while the country's first elected
President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is kept out. These two
facts really say everything about Washington's policy toward
Haiti, and our government's respect for democracy in that
country and in the region.

Asked about the return of Duvalier, who had thousands
tortured and murdered under his dictatorship, State
Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, "this is a matter
for the Government of Haiti and the people of Haiti."

But when asked about Aristide returning, he said "Haiti does
not need, at this point, any more burdens."

Wikileaks cables released in the last week show that
Washington put pressure on Brazil, which is heading up the
United Nations forces that are occupying Haiti, not only to
keep Aristide out of the country but to keep him from having
any political influence from exile.

Who is this dangerous man that Washington fears so much?
Here is how the Washington Post editorial board described
Aristide's first term, back in 1996:

Elected overwhelmingly, ousted by a coup and reseated by
American troops, the populist ex-priest abolished the
repressive army, virtually ended human rights violations,
mostly kept his promise to promote reconciliation, ran
ragged but fair elections and, though he had the popular
support to ignore it, honored his pledge to step down at the
end of his term. A formidable record.

That was before the Post editorial board became neo-
conservative, and most importantly before Washington
launched its campaign to oust Aristide a second time.
Together with its international allies, especially Canada
and France, they cut off almost all foreign aid to the
country after 2000. At the same time they poured in tens of
millions of dollars - to build up an opposition movement.
With control over most of the media, and the help of armed
thugs, convicted murderers, and former death squad leaders,
the broken and impoverished government was toppled in
February of 2004.

The main difference between the 2004 coup and the 1991 coup
that overthrew Aristide was that in 1991, President George
H.W. Bush did not recognize the coup government, even though
the people that installed it were paid by the CIA. They had
to at least pretend they were not involved. But in 2004,
under the second President Bush, they didn't even bother to
hide it. This represents a de-generation of U.S. foreign
policy.

I recently had a conversation with a long-time U.S.
Congressman in which I pointed out Washington overthrew
Aristide the second time, in 2004, because he had abolished
the Haitian army. "That's right," he said.

Washington is a cynical place. The most important human
rights organizations in this town did not do very much when
thousands of Haitians were killed after the 2004 coup, and
officials of the constitutional government were thrown in
jail. And it does not seem to be an issue to them, or to the
main "pro-democracy" organizations, here that Haiti's
prominent former president is kept out of the country  - in
violation of Haiti's constitution and international law.
Nor that his party, still the most popular in the country,
is banned from participating in elections. The major media
generally follows their lead.

Now we have elections in Haiti where the Organization of
American States, at the behest of Washington, is trying to
choose for Haiti who will compete in the second round of its
presidential election. That is Washington's idea of
democracy.

But Aristide is still alive, in forced exile in South
Africa. He remains the most popular political leader in
Haiti, and seven years is not enough to erase his memory
from Haitian consciousness.  Sooner or later, he will be
back.

[Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and
Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He is also president of
Just Foreign Policy.]

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